I earned a Masters degree in Broadcast Journalism from the School of Communication at Boston University in 1974 (a long, long time ago). After graduation, I was hired by the University of New Hampshire. I worked on a grant to film, script, and edit videotapes about federal government programs for the elderly.

This was back in the days when videotaping was done on reel-to-reel tapes. Portable color cameras were just coming on the market. Editing videotape was a time-consuming, nerve-wracking process where the slightest error could mean starting from scratch. We never dreamed that one day a filmmaker could edit videotape on a personal computer! (What was a personal computer?)

When I decided to get a book trailer, I couldn’t help reverting back to my former profession. I scripted the one-minute trailer, picking the visuals and music. Tanja from BooksGoSocial put it all together.

I am often asked this question by a reader: Whatever possessed you as a man to write a novel from the point of view of an 18-year-old Jewish girl living in Montreal in 1951?

Possessed is the right word. Every morning, I had coffee in a café where I read a book to unwind after commuting to my job in Boston. Riva Weiss, an elderly woman who also stopped at the café before work, introduced herself and asked me what I was reading. Over several years, we discussed authors we liked and swapped favorite books.

When I told her I was retiring, she asked about my future plans. I said I wanted to write short stories “and maybe a novel.”

Riva began telling me several stories about her childhood in Montreal. When I said they would make great short stories, she encouraged me to ‘write them up.’ I jumped at the chance.

One morning, soon after I finished writing two stories, Riva noted that I enjoyed literature with ‘dark’ themes. When I agreed she said, “Well then, I’ve got a story for you.” Over the next half hour she talked about her engagement when she was 18 years old to a young, wealthy man in Montreal in 1951. I was astounded by her story and couldn’t get it out of my mind.

She graciously offered me the chance to ‘write’ it up. Immediately I was fascinated but knew that this was more than a short story. Riva was surprised when I brought in chapter after chapter for her to read. “I thought this was going to be another short story.” Like the apprentice’s broomsticks, the chapters kept coming. “But you haven’t even got to the proposal yet!” Even I wasn’t prepared for the final length: 90,000 words. “We’ve got a novel,” she said.

There is a story behind every photograph, especially a photograph of a lovely young girl standing on top of Mount Royal. Pierre knows this. He was part of the search and rescue team who searched the crash site of a passenger plane. That’s where he found the photograph. He thought he recognized the young girl, but it didn’t come back to him right away. Searching the passenger list of the downed plane, Pierre is able to deduce the identity of the girl, someone he met years ago at his family’s cottage, someone who at the time was engaged to a friend of his, one of the passengers on the doomed plane.

Echo from Mount Royal is a tragedy. It’s Rebecca’s story; she’s the young girl in the photograph. She doesn’t know about the photograph’s discovery and it’s not until her grandson leads her through the confusing channels of the internet that she unravels a past that she would have wished to leave in the past. It’s a love story, a poignant reminder of the fragility of life and how the pattern of one’s life can change dramatically in just a blink of an eye. For Rebecca, this dramatic change was almost her undoing, as she came to realize that, “One cannot escape life. Whatever happens, one must endure.”

Author Dave Riese has written a very moving romantic tragedy. His story begins almost like a memoir, a creative nonfiction story about a real person’s life. Two stories overlap; Pierre, the search and rescuer who discovered the photograph in the wreckage of a passenger plane, and Rebecca, the romantic young girl who innocently treads a path towards heartbreak. The story is well paced as it grips the reader right from the beginning. A well crafted story.

Echo from Mount Royal by Dave Riese is a sweeping saga about young Rebecca who finds herself head over heels in love with Sol, a boy from a wealthy family.

Rebecca Wiseman

Told from the perspective of a much older 81-year-old Rebecca, she recalls, in vivid detail, the year 1951, when she was only 18 years old and falling in love for the first time. She’s a bright college student living with her family in Montreal, Canada when her path crosses Sol. Not a typical romance because once they try to get to know each other as a couple, their own respective backgrounds and family secrets begin to surface, threatening to tear them apart. Firmly believing that love is more than enough to overcome any of the issues that they face, her tale is a reminder of the exhilarating joy first love can bring, and the deep scars it can leave behind. This story is full of great discussion topics such as first love, religion and social class, which is why it makes for an ideal read for a Book Club. To read the complete review, click here

Author with Malka Ahmed at NE Authors Book Expo

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Montreal has a rich history of novels in the world of fiction. Here is a selection of 10 great novels about Montreal that will help you travel to this fascinating city without leaving your armchair.<

1. Perhaps one of the best known novels is The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler. The book was made into a movie in 1973 starring Richard Dreyfuss and Randy Quaid. A great example of Richler’s satirical view of life, it is also a sympathetic story of a young man, a third-generation Jewish immigrant, who wants to succeed in the eyes of his father and grandfather.

2. Earth and High Heavenis a 1944 novel by Gwethalyn Graham. It reached number one on The New York Times bestseller list – a first for a Canadian novel – and stayed on the list for 37 weeks. A young woman from a wealthy Protestant family in Westmount falls in love with a Jewish lawyer from Ontario. They are forced to overcome the anti-Semitism of their society. The book won the Governor General’s Literary Award in 1944.

3. Nikolski, by Nicolas Dickner, won many awards including the Governor General’s Award for French fiction in 2005. The novel brings together three semi-nomadic 20-somethings living in the Plateau. Set in Montreal, the novel radiates deep, yet entertaining, musings on the meaning of home.

4. The House on Black Lakeis a modern day gothic suspense/romance novel by an American novelist, Anastasia Blackwell. The book is a mesmerizing trip through the Montreal underworld, where Gypsies, fortune tellers and mystics create their own rules. The book tells the story of a woman’s obsession for a man leading her into secrets, betrayal and shocking fate.

5. Echo from Mount Royaltakes place in 1951 Montreal, vividly re-created by the author Dave Riese. The novel tells the story of Rebecca Wiseman, an eighteen-year-old from a working class, Catholic-Jewish family in Outremont. A chance meeting with Sol Gottesman, the Jewish orthodox son of a wealthy Westmount businessman, begins an affair fulfilling her romantic dreams. When class, sexual inexperience and family secrets test their love, Rebecca struggles to control events with humor and compassion. But a late night phone call and its shocking revelation changes her life forever. Continue reading →